What I’m thinking about on Memorial Day

 

What I’m thinking about on Memorial Day

Most people I know are happy about Memorial Day, There’s no school, no work, and probably some beach or pool time. They throw burgers on the grill and spend the day in the sun.

But that’s not what I’m thinking about on Memorial Day.

I think about a naval surveillance aircraft, the Lockheed SP2E-Neptune, taking off for a mission through the Santa Ana Mountains of Southern California one rainy February night in 1969.

Seven crew from the nation’s heartland miss their wives and children back home, yet they are alert with anticipation. They are aviators, so they crave flight. The thrust, the power, the roar of four engines course through their veins like an electric current.

Ground control points them to the western runway and warns about weather. The air controller sends the coordinates. The heavy Neptune lifts into a furious dark. Rain and fog surround the aircraft as it lifts through the black night. The coordinates lead Neptune into Modjeska Canyon at 3,000 feet. Water pings against the heavy aircraft like enemy arrows.

But aviators don’t fly into canyons. This is no place for a huge aircraft. Somehow, the coordinates are wrong; pilots fly from high to low, not low to high. The Santa Ana peaks rise to 5,000 feet, unnoticed, ahead of the crew. Thunder booms. Lightning flashes, lighting up the canyon walls hedging them in on all sides.

Pull up, pull up!

May day! May day!

There’s a deafening collision of metal and rock as an explosion illuminates the dark.

Fate snuffs out seven young lives. Out, just like that. In a millisecond. While preparing for freedom.

The next morning seven young mothers open front doors to naval officers in crisp white uniforms, their hats tucked under their arms. In different towns, on quiet streets that anticipate a normal work day, seven sets of parents open doors to officers in bright white uniforms and serious faces. The nightmare that haunts every military family materializes on fourteen doorsteps.

Twenty-four children sit numb and confused, as their mommies hold their hands and try to explain.

When is Daddy coming home?

Never, baby. He’s with Jesus now.

Seven young widows live the price of freedom.

Moms find jobs and struggle to make ends meet. Their children avoid father-son outings and father-daughter dances because the pain is so real. They go back to school and sit in quiet sadness while people ignore their grief.

Grandmothers and grandfathers and brothers and sisters finger old pictures and keep old toys, simply because they belonged to him. Families settle into silent pain and guard their memories, even though they long to speak. At any moment, the memories generate smell, touch, and feeling of a man’s presence. They see him everywhere and nowhere.

Always mothers, wives, and children consider correct assumptions about the absence of their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers. Life marches dimly on, through Memorial Days and Fourths of July and Veteran’s Days when other people fly flags and eat burgers and complain about America.

Our government is untrustworthy, people say. Yes, I know. My father died, and the Navy sealed the records on what happened and why.

Our government is taking too much money for taxes, people complain. I know that my mom opted out of her widow’s benefits because she wanted to the money to go to people who needed it more than her.

Our government should stop sending troops into war, people rage. Yes, I know war is horrible because in some sense, everybody loses.

Countless thousands of soldiers have died on training missions, sorties, special ops, and wartime missions, preparing for freedom, risking health and family time because someone has to train for unexpected and unwanted military conflict.

But I also know that grieving families wish that everyone would call their loved ones “American heroes” because honoring the dead helps validate the loss. Families wish that people would appreciate the sacrifice instead of condemning the policies. They just want people to remember.

They wish, that when the National Anthem begins, people would take off their caps and put their hands over their hearts and actually sing the words. They know too well that “the land of the free and the home of the brave” has been achieved at great personal expense. Every day, someone is paying dearly for the privilege of America.

Today, someone—so many someones—are visiting cemeteries and missing their loved ones. They remember. Do you?

This is what I’m thinking about on Memorial Day.